Some people still prefer to look a bank teller in the eye when they make a financial transaction. They will put up with the chronic lunch hour queues and frantic filling-in of slips with chained-down pens and determinedly boycott the quicklodge system.

They are a rare breed that tolerate inconvenience for the reassuring stamping of a cheque or bill and the satisfaction of an instant paper record of their dealings.

Not everybody has moved with the times and the technology yet, but right now it is possible to do most of your personal banking business from the beach, on your laptop, at the supermarket checkout and even from your couch on Christmas Day.

For the financial institutions it's all about cutting down infrastructure and maximising market penetration; for the customer, it's about convenience and control.

Earlier this week, Allied Irish Banks (AIB), unveiled its latest product - online mortgage applications. Part of its much-flagged Internet strategy, it will allow users to get an immediate "mortgage in principle" decision and a sanctioned approval within 36 hours.

The high street bank branch as we know it is something that will soon be thought about with nostalgia as a quaint 20th century custom.

The latest novelty in retail banking is based on the US supermarket/personal banking model which has proven successful with busy shoppers. A joint venture between Superquinn and TSB Bank, Tusa was launched in Lucan, Dublin last October. With a footfall of 20,000 households passing through that particular supermarket every week, the banking outlet has excellent exposure to potential customers.

Five Tusa outlets are currently in operation and all 17 Superquinn stores will have one by the end of the year. The Lucan outlet is laid out behind the checkout area and is compact and open-plan. Aside from onsite telephone and electronic self-service options, the staff are on hand 59 hours a week to provide a full range of financial products - including current accounts, credit card facilities, personal loans, mortgages and savings plans - all at highly competitive rates.

It's also possible to lodge and withdraw money at the checkout with the use of the bank's six-function laser card.

The convenience factor has won over many shoppers. Mr Sean Hourihane, who lives locally, sees the new service as a step in the right direction. "Lucan village is so congested, that I tend to come here to avoid the parking problem," he said. One disadvantage pointed out by Mr Hourihane was the fact that the Tusa network is small and not State-wide. However, this may not always be the case as Tusa is examining whether to locate in other retail outlets such as Easons, Atlantic Homecare and even Texaco. The trend of mixing banking and shopping is unlikely to remain the preserve of one bank.

A hugely successful development in personal banking has been direct phone banking. The practice of conducting banking business over the phone is now the norm, particularly for the younger working population. Banking 365, Bank of Ireland's phone banking service, has approximately 150,000 active phone users and expects to get around four million calls this year, an increase of 66 per cent on 1999.

Customers are quite happy to do without the human touch and more than half of all callers to Banking 365 avail of the self-service option. "Most customers use the phone for basic and routine transactions such as balance inquiry and paying a bill but a full range of products is available and many people make several transactions in one call," according to Mr Cathal Muckian, head of direct banking services for B of I.

Customers are also choosing to put their finances in order in the middle of the night and during holiday periods. Research on Banking 365 customers identified control, speed and privacy as key benefits of the service, but the overall customer benefit cited was convenience.

Even more convenient than a phone call is doing banking business on a personal computer. There is no talking and just a little typing involved and all the information is presented on screen. The main domestic banks all have online banking services set up, but AIB's is one of the most user-friendly. The closest thing to actually submitting your financial identity to the Web is to take the interactive demonstration on the AIB 24 Hour-Online site. The first prompt asks for and provides an eight-digit registration number. At the next page two designated digits of a personal access code are required. The third security step varies and you can be asked to type the last four digits of your telephone or credit card numbers.

From there on, the customer is effectively acting as his or her own bank teller. Account balances are displayed, and through a virtual filing system you can view statements for any account, transfer funds, pay bills or do a cheque search.

Bill payment is alarmingly easy. It's all down to clicking from your list of accounts and the list of utilities and the customer can choose a payment date up to 28 days in advance.

This extends to 90 days on the Ulster Bank service. Ulster uses a pass phrase as a digital signature, instead of a PIN and its online customers can review transactions up to four months back and make transfers to other financial institutions in the Republic.

Banking 365 Online is not as lively a site to explore but it does draw the customer's attention to terms and conditions and reminds the user that - while all reasonable security precautions have been taken by the bank, the nature of the communication by the Internet is such that the bank cannot guarantee the privacy or confidentiality of any information relating to the customer passing over the Internet

Banking 365 Online goes into plenty of reassuring background detail on the workings of the service in its "Frequently asked questions" and `Security - yours and ours"' links. At the cutting edge of the merging of mobile telephony and information technologies, Ulster Bank customers will soon be able to call up their account balance and make daily transactions on a mobile phone. The new service, which will be available from April, can be accessed through WAP-enabled phones, which is the new generation model that allows access to the Internet.

Initially customers will be able to read an account balance, order a chequebook and make account enquiries on their mobile phone. Only a keypad away from knowing your account balance at any given time - this may not exactly be a dream come true for every customer but one thing is certain, there's no going back.